The invention relates to a telecommunication terminal provided with an integrated circuit card known as a smart card comprising one or more application programs.
The invention applies particularly to cellular telephone terminals of the mobile terminal type such as mobile telephones complying with the GSM or DCS standards.
It should be stated that the smart cards used in telephone terminals make it possible to identify the subscriber and contain a telephone application program. These cards are generally known as SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) cards.
New generations of telephone terminals are being provided, functioning with two smart cards, one smart card dedicated to telephony and another smart card dedicated to other applications, for example the electronic purse application.
For this purpose these terminals must be equipped with two interfaces for reading smart cards, one for communicating with the subscriber identification smart card and the other with the smart card dedicated to the other applications.
However, new developments are aimed at reducing the size of mobile telephones. One way of achieving this consists in using only one smart card, which is then of the multi-application type. Thus the mobile telephone no longer needs to have two reading interfaces.
Provision is therefore made, according to these new developments, for the same smart card to contain several application programs, one being for telephony and the other being able to be a banking application such as an electronic purse, another being able to be a loyalty application (loyalty points), a health application or a game application.
The telecommunication terminals are designed to be connected to a telecommunication network used by telephone subscribers to access other subscribers or services.
Amongst these networks are telephone networks, switched networks or integrated service networks and the cellular telephone network.
Up to the present time access to the smart card in a terminal or the smart cards in the said terminal was possible only through the terminal, from the said telecommunication network.
Provision is made, with the new developments, for this access to be open to any processing unit of the computer or microcomputer type (personal computer PC or network computer NC), referred to hereinafter as a microcomputer.
To this end the telecommunication terminal must be equipped with means of physical connection with the microcomputer. This is a case of a connector and a cable link. Some terminals are already equipped with an input/output port making it possible to connect them to a microcomputer for transferring data through the radio network.
It is therefore envisaged, according to these developments, to use the existing physical access means. However, the problem of access to the card by means other than the mobile telephone network is for all that unresolved.
The applicant has resolved this problem by providing in the terminal logical access means to the card from a microcomputer and means of managing the accesses from the telecommunication network and/or microcomputer.
The logical access means comprise means of interpreting commands sent from the microcomputer and/or sent from the network, executing these commands if it is a case of commands which can be executed by the terminal and transmitting to the card if it is a case of commands which can be executed by the card.
According to one characteristic of the invention, the management means are able:
according to a first embodiment:
to keep the two logical access means (by microcomputer and network) active, to then change to blocking mode to momentarily block one of the means of access to the card from the microcomputer or from the network, leaving the other access open, and to put on stand-by the commands arriving through the blocked access means;
according to a second operating mode:
to temporarily deactivate one of the access means, the terminal then functioning exclusively in smart card read mode (access through the microcomputer) or exclusively in telecommunication terminal mode (access through the network).
In fact, opening up access to the card through the terminal, other than through the telephone channel, also poses the problem of the management of the accesses in order to prevent any conflict and/or loss and/or unintentional modification of information on the card. This problem has therefore been resolved by the applicant.
Preferably the access management means keep the two access means active and put on standby the commands arriving through the network access means when the microcomputer requests access for an application different from the one which is able to be used by the network.
Preferably the access management means temporarily deactivate the network access means when the microcomputer requests access for the same application able to be used by the network.
The means of managing access to the card include means of blocking access to the card through the network and unblocking means, activated by the terminal after reception of a blocking command sent by the microcomputer to enable it to process two simultaneous accesses to the card, one access being requested by the network for one application and the other being requested by the microcomputer for a distinct application.
The means of managing access to the card also include reversible means of changing to exclusive card read mode, deactivating the telecommunication terminal operating mode, these means being activated by the terminal after reception of a read mode command.
This makes it possible to deal with the case where access is requested by the microcomputer for an application dedicated to access by the network. The terminal then functions as a smart card reader.
Advantageously the blocking means have a timeont, during which the terminal is able to receive one or more commands from the telephone network and to store this command or commands until unblocking.
Advantageously, the duration of the timeont corresponds to the maximum period required by the card for executing an application command.